timill

Surprisingly, I seem to have adjusted to UK time pretty well. Okay, I woke up at 5 AM, but my normal wake-up time at home is around 4:30 AM anyway. OTOH, that won't work on the two days this coming week that I'm working remotely at the Day Jobbe, but I'll deal with that when we get there.

Today we had the day to ourselves (we have commitments tomorrow).

( Around Exeter )

We did a lot of shopping but very little buying. There was a street market with various vendors, and I bought Kayla a pair of earrings, which was about all for me. We also looked in some bookstores, but I didn't find anything that I wanted to try and squeeze into my luggage.

We were back at the hotel in the mid-to-late afternoon, as I was loaning my computer to Kayla to participate in the First Main Meeting of the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting. She participated by voice only because I didn't pack the webcam. Because of the nature of the meeting, neither she nor I have much to say about it. Cheryl put various sports on the hotel TV and we ordered room service.

Tomorrow we have non-fannish responsibilities about which we'll report later, but with luck I'll get some sleep tonight despite having to drink a bunch of coffee to stay awake earlier today.

I left Reno for SFO on Friday afternoon and arrived in London mid-afternoon on Saturday, continuing on to Exeter via London Paddington by train. Travel is always wearing, but this was some of the best travel I've ever had.

( First Class Most of the Way )

This was of course a very long day-plus for me, but fortunately, we don't have to be up early tomorrow. Getting that Polaris upgrade made a big difference, so I'm only tired, not shattered.

I'm heading to the UK (RNO-SFO-LHR) today for a week, staying with Cheryl Morgan at her place in Wales. We're attending a non-fannish function about which I might write later, but not now. In order to preserve PTO, I'll work remotely for a couple of the days I'm there, as I did last summer after Worldcon.

Normally, I don't look forward to long flights, but this time United's upgrade algorithm slipped a gear and offered a Polaris Business class upgrade for less than Premium Economy and cheap compared to them asking $500 (!) for a first-class upgrade for the roughly hour-long flight RNO-SFO, and I jumped on it before the AI came to its senses. I get what looks to be a very nice seat (left side single), along with Polaris lounge access at SFO on the layover.

With luck, I should get some valuable sleep tonight. The flight leaves in the evening and arrives Saturday afternoon local time. Given how tired I am right now, I'm looking forward to it.

According to FlightTracker, Lisa's flight DEN-MUC landed about the time I got up this morning to start working on the Day Jobbe. A few hours later, she called me from her apartment (long-stay hotel), having managed to make her way there from the airport. (On her past trip, she arrived in Munich by train and left by heading north toward Norway by train, so she'd never actually been at Munich airport.) To her relief, the room has a wired internet connection like the one in which she stayed there last year. (It's actually the same exact room layout and location as last year, just on a different floor.) This meant she could connect her internet phone and thus can call me at no extra charge. She told me she'd go out and get groceries (she knows where the nearest Aldi Sud) is, try to stay up a little longer, then get some much-needed sleep. She wasn't able to sleep on the plane because both seats next to her filled, and worse, the couple sitting in those seats coughed the whole way from Denver to Munich. Lisa, naturally, stayed masked up with one of her N95 masks, as I will do on my flight to London tomorrow.

This morning around 10:30 AM, I took Kuma Bear and Lisa in to Reno Airport to catch her flight to Denver continuing on to Munich for her European Rail Adventure. This was the first time I'd ever parked in the short-term garage at RNO.

Her flight was scheduled for 1:30 PM, and we got there a bit after 11:30 AM. We'd upgraded the first leg of the flight to first class because it was a bargain, getting her through the express check-in and also a faster Terrorization queue. The new rules on not having to take off your shoes are in effect here. I stayed with her as far as the security checkpoint, then waited here to make sure nothing went awry. They needed to go through her bag, which took a while, but eventually she got everything put back together, waved goodbye, and headed off to find her gate.

Because of a previous unfortunate experience with a train trip, it seemed prudent for me to stay at the airport until her flight departed. I therefore had lunch at the only ground-side restaurant at the airport. While I was there, she called me. (We got her a flip phone; the same model as I have.) No serious issues, although she did cut her hand somehow while repacking her bag. (One of the airport staff gave her a bandage.) I slowly ate lunch, and by the time I was finished, her flight was boarding, and I decided it was safe enough to leave.

When I got home, I did need to get back to the Day Jobbe, but the accumulated fatigue had caught up to me and I simply had to get a nap. Before doing so, I used FlightTracker to check on her flight. By then, she was out over Utah somewhere on her way to Denver. I got about a 90 minute nap, when she called me from Denver to let me know that everything went fine and that she was at the gate for her flight to Munich. From our previous checks, we know that there were a pretty good number of empty seats, and that the middle seat next to her was empty. I won't know until she gets to Germany, but I reckon there's a decent chance that she'll get at least an empty seat next to her and maybe even the entire group of three seats, if the person in that third seat in her row jumps to one of the other empty areas. I hope so; that way Kuma Bear can have his own seat.

Returning to the Day Jobbe, I worked for a few more hours before calling it a day. I need to get more sleep!